Straight From The Top

Automotive Industries,  Nov, 1999  by Marjorie Sorge

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Q. When will you choose the hi-pots?

A. We will take very bright people right out of school and give them as much experience as fast as they can absorb it. We will bring our foreign nationals over here and allow them to have the experiences at an earlier age than we are right now. The GM Strategy Board is looking at career paths for foreign nationals.

Q. What is the career path of a high-potential 22-year-old engineering graduate?

A. First you'd get an engineering assignment. Then at an early stage we might want you to school for an MBA and then we would give you cross- functional experience from there. There would be a foreign assignment and managerial responsibilities. That is a very common thing today, but we have to think in terms of doing the same things in our foreign operations. That is the weak spot.

Jens NEUMANN

VW Targets North America

Definitely on a roll, it is developing new products aimed specifically at this market, and it's very quickly.

Volkswagen is an impatient company that aims to be global. To accomplish that goal, it must build cars and trucks that attract young and old alike. It must grow by leaps and bounds in North America, push products out the door faster and become less German-centric.

Company Chairman Ferdinand Piech and his lieutenants have a grand scheme to meet those goals, and do it quickly. It involves listening to, and understanding, the voice of the customer as the automaker moves into markets beyond Europe. It also involves creating the cars and trucks they want from a widening number of brands. Through strategic acquisitions and the industry's broadest platform engineering plan, Piech has quickly put a VW product into every vehicle segment -- from the tiny Lupo, to Bentley, Lamborghini and all the way to the ultraexclusive Bugatti.

But that's not enough. A come-hither look from buyers has drawn VW back into North America where it's enjoyed double-digit sales growth for the past five years. But this is a fickle market that demands fresh vehicles often and VW must be up to the challenge.

"This is the biggest and best growth market," says Jens Neumann, member of VW's board of management and the No. 2 executive behind Piech.

Sales in North America were up 37.6% through September. That double-digit growth will continue for "the next couple of years," Neumann predicts. After that it becomes "mathematically difficult, but we are not there yet. Our rainbow will continue to appear."

Such growth is a boon for Neumann, who is in charge of VW's North American strategy and has long fought to build products specific to this market. He was one of the early boosters of the New Beetle and pushed hard for the car, even when Piech wasn't convinced. Now with sales skyrocketing in North America he says it will be easier to get VW to build cars and trucks aimed at America

That includes a sport-utility vehicle done with Porsche and the Audi All Road, derived from the A6 Avant. Both are due out in 2001. A pickup truck comes in 2002 or 2003 and is based on the SUV platform. "We are the inventors of the multipurpose vehicle with the Microbus and that could be a direction," Neumann says. Look for the pickup to be more SUV- and passenger-car like than traditional trucks. It will compete against vehicles like the BMW X5.